Metropolitan Anthony (Pakanich): Striving for autocephaly can destroy the unity of the Church and Orthodox consciousness

Metropolitan Antony (Pakanich), who directs the affairs of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, has spoken about the spiritual dangers of striving for church autocephaly if it becomes an end in itself or a tool of politics. According to him, when independence is placed above unity in Christ, it can cause irreparable damage to the Church, lead to schism and replace the Orthodox consciousness of the people with nationalistic ideology. He wrote about this in his Facebook account.

In his address, Metropolitan Anthony explained that the term «autocephaly», literally meaning «self-headedness», represents only one form of church structure, which can be useful for pastoral ministry. However, he emphasized that autocephaly is not a dogma and can in no way be more important than the unity of the Body of Christ. «No administrative form — autocephaly, autonomy or any other status — can be more important than unity in Christ, » the hierarch noted. If this form of ecclesiastical independence is achieved contrary to sobornost, it ceases to serve the good of the Church.

According to the Metropolitan, the situation when the desire for autocephaly arises under the pressure of politics, and not in the spirit of the Church’s sobornost is particularly dangerous. It becomes destructive if it leads to a rupture of eucharistic unity with other Local Churches or is based on nationalism, pitting one nation against another. «If the desire for autocephaly leads to opposing oneself to other Churches, to the loss of communion in faith and the Sacraments, then this is no longer development, but schism,» the Vladyka said.

Metropolitan Anthony also pointed to the threat of substitution of the Orthodox consciousness, which, according to him, is not based on political or national independence, but on faithfulness to the Gospel and participation in the sacraments. When autocephaly becomes a tool of politics, it can erode that consciousness, replacing it with ethnophyletism or ecclesiastical nationalism. «If people begin to think like this: ‘our main task, our goal is to create our own personal, independent church’ — this will not preserve but destroy Orthodox consciousness,» he warned.

Among the harmful consequences of the rash proclamation of autocephaly Metropolitan singled out isolation from universal Orthodoxy, citing the example of historical schisms in which the Bulgarian Exarchate and the Macedonian Church found themselves for decades. In addition, hasty autocephaly, especially in conditions of war or external pressure, inevitably causes a split within the people themselves. The worst outcome of such a division is the loss of Eucharistic communion, when some Orthodox believers cannot receive communion with others. According to the hierarch, this is a direct threat to the salvation of souls, since «outside the Eucharist there is no salvation.»

In conclusion, Metropolitan Anthony touched on the thesis that the Church is protected by Christ Himself, Who said: «I will build My Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it» (Matthew 16:18). He clarified that these words do not guarantee the preservation of every particular local congregation if it embarks on the path of division. History knows many examples of communities that have separated from the Church and lost their Orthodox consciousness. «Each branch of the universal Orthodox tree remains alive only when it is nourished by the sap coming from the one root of this tree. But if it is separated from such nourishment, the result is only one — withering», — concluded the Metropolitan.

Earlier Archbishop Silvester (Stoychev) of Bilogorodsk, vicar of the Kyiv Metropolitanate and rector of the Kyiv Theological Academy of the UOC, published a detailed theological and historical justification of the idea of autocephaly. In his opinion, the desire for full administrative independence is a natural and normal state for every Local Church, and not a synonym for schism, as it is often presented. The hierarch presented his theses as a response to questions that arose after his participation in a podcast on the future status of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.